


I'm Terrified Something's Gonna Happen (even though I know it will)

by actualbabe



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Anxiety, Canon typical drug use, F/M, Manic Episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 21:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12920226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualbabe/pseuds/actualbabe
Summary: Charlie Kelly's mind buzzes. Everyone's does, of course, that's like a common fact about brains.





	I'm Terrified Something's Gonna Happen (even though I know it will)

Charlie Kelly's mind buzzes.

Everyone's does, of course, that's like a common fact about brains. He heard that somewhere, like when Dennis was going on and on about some class he took at Penn or some lecture or whatever they call it there. College is weird. 

The buzzing is good. It goes off every morning when it's time for him to wake up, sometimes in the middle of the night too, which is good because that means he's got something to do or there's something he's forgetting. It'll buzz louder and louder and louder until he goes to check the rat traps and then his brain gets so loud he can't hear the little rat screams as he bashes them with his super awesome new bashing stick he got for his not-birthday. Then things calm down and he can breathe because everything is alright and his head isn't blaring at him that he needs to do something incredibly important or else-

He's not like his mom. His mom worries, and Charlie is not a worrier. She's always sending him letters covered in magazine clippings about the muslim spies next door, which is totally racist by the way, and clicking the lights on and off three times for whatever reason. 

Three's a good number. It takes three hits to kill a rat. One to stun it, to get it to stop moving so fast; another so its body stops squirming around so much; and then a final blow to the head. Three bus stops between him and the bar. Three friends: Charlie, Mac and Dennis. Dee and Frank make five, which isn't as good as three but odd numbers are safe too.

Not safe, good. Odd numbers are good. They make his brain buzz less.

So do inhalants. Some people might think he uses them too much but his real friends don't care, and sometimes they do them with him. It's a good feeling, when everything slows down and it's just him and his thoughts without any screaming or yelling or alarm bells blaring away in his brain so loud that he can't think of anything else. Alcohol is good too, but that costs more and takes longer to kick in. Coke is- 

It's like running at the speed of light, like he's this blur of energy that's so fast that the whole world is slow around him, like he's that one superhero character who runs so fast that no one can catch him and he's so fast that time just stops and all the alarms make sense because he can fix all of it and he can do it all and nothing can ever go wrong and if it did he would run so fast that time stopped and he'd go back and change everything and make things right and and and-

The waitress is the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in his life. Seriously. But she's in trouble all the time. Like all the time. That's why Charlie's glad he's got this like, psychic power that makes his brain start to buzz whenever she's about to have her bike stolen or be late for work or sprain her ankle or get shived in the middle of the park and have her body tossed over the bridge. That's why he's always gotta know where she is because that way he can watch out for her and make sure she's safe. It makes the buzzing go away. Because every moment he doesn't know where exactly she is is a moment where his brain starts to buzz louder and louder until he can't think straight and he wants to rip his hair out or get high or drunk even though that won't do anything to save her.

He's cleaning the tile of the women's bathroom at Paddy’s. No one ever comes in here but the back of his mind is buzzing again even though he's checked the rat traps three times today and trash gets dealt with on Wednesdays and the waitress is safe in her tiny apartment with its solid walls and the pipes that creak a little and the thin walls that mean she can let her neighbor's apnea lull her to sleep.

Something's gonna happen. He can feel it. His brain is getting louder and louder and he can barely hear the jumbled words of his thoughts and even the smell of the bleach he's scrubbing into the grout of the tiles isn't enough to slow it down but maybe if he grips the handle of the brush a little tighter then the wood will snap and cut his hand right down the palm and he'll feel something other than sheer panic because his head hurts because it's screaming that something, something, something is gonna happen any minute now: lightning will strike him and fry all his nerves or his heart will suddenly stop pumping so frantically that he can hear the blood rushing in his ears or a train will burst through the wall and run him right over or-

"Charlie? What the fuck are you doing here? It's 3am."

Dee. It's Dee. Charlie exhales and the brush falls out of his hand and clatters onto the floor. Dee's here. She's alive. That's what the worry was about. Because she never showed up to the bar this morning and they'd assumed she'd been off on some weird bird scheme of her own but then she hadn't shown up to help with the evening rush but then again it was the middle of the week so they didn't really need her but there was something off about-

"You're crying."

There's dark smudges under her eyes, and Dee immediately lifts up a hand and wipes at them, her black fingernail polish shining in the florescent light of the bar bathroom. Her eyes are a little red too, but she can't fix that by rubbing at them, so she doesn't. 

"No I'm not, dickbreath."

She doesn't comment on the cleaning thing. Charlie's fingers are stinging, feeling returning to the very tips now that he's released his death grip on the worn scrubber brush. He'd chewed his fingernails down until they reached the skin and then he bit a little off that too until he tasted the salty sting of his blood and then he stopped because he couldn't feel the sting of it and Mac was starting to stare and Dennis looked like he was five seconds away from making some bullshit comment on oral fixations or some other psychology bullshit and now Charlie can feel the sting of watered down bleach seeping into the tiny little cuts in his skin and the buzzing is starting to fade now that he has something real and solid like pain to focus on.

_ "Where were you today?" _ is what he wants to ask but that sounds too desperate and like something his worried mom would say so instead he says "You didn't show up to work-  _ and I thought you died" _ but he leaves off the second part when it gets caught in his throat.

"Oh yeah, well something came up," Dee's voice wobbles a little and she looks over at the mirror instead of at him. "Artemis, you know."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

It's not true, but Charlie can't guess where she's been or why she's crying now and he's too afraid to ask but not knowing is just gonna make the buzzing worse and then he's gonna end up scrubbing and scrubbing until he opens the bar in the morning and he didn't get any sleep last night either and he could really use a solid four consecutive hours for once. 

"Are you-" he says just as Dee's mouth opens and a quiet little "I" slips out past her lips. She's staring right at the mirror but her eyes are empty. Charlie bites his lip hard and the pain feels right because the buzzing says so.

A few seconds of silence and then-

"I had a rough night."

More silence. It's his turn to say something.

"That blows."

"Yeah."

"Do you-  _ wanna drink?" _ He doesn't say the last bit because he doesn't have to. He doesn't really want one but it'll make things quieter and staying awake for 36 straight hours will only make the buzzing louder because he won't be able to do anything when something goes wrong, because something always goes wrong.

"Not really"

"Okay."

Dee sounds bad. She's not gaggy, which would almost be better than the quiet and barely there murmur of her words. This isn't like her, she's supposed to be loud and crass and vibrant, vibrant as the sun when it's exploding in the morning and making things bright and full of energy. Charlie's watched the sunrise after a restless night more times than he could count and it's beautiful and gorgeous and amazing.

The sun sets as Dee slowly slips onto the ground, her long legs spread out in front of her as she leans back against the sink counter. Her boney fingers start to toy with the hem of her black tank top, the flowy one that makes her look like she's floating a little bit. There's more tears welling up in her eyes and her lower lip is trembling a little. Dee's not supposed to be like this because she's bright and strong and put together and this isn't right this isn't how it's supposed to be not at all.

"I'm- I'm a bad person, Charlie."

He doesn't know what to say so he says nothing.

"I- I don't do the right thing and I'm always just pretending like my life is kinda put together but it's all falling apart and there's nothing I can do about that because nothing really matters anymore and if I was gone that'd really be what's best for the world and-"

"I'd miss you."

The words aren't supposed to leave his brain or tumble out of his mouth but they do and suddenly he can't stop saying things.

"I spend everyday thinking about you and when you didn't show up today I thought something really bad happened. My brain wouldn't stop buzzing and there were all these terrible things that were gonna happen. But then here you are because things are okay, but I didn't realize that until you showed up. And that's good because my fingers were starting to bleed and the bleach smell wasn't making my head slow down like it usually does. And you're like the sun because you shine really bright and if the sun didn't rise then everyone would notice because it's so bright and loud and awesome and kinda beautiful so much that you can't look at it for a long time cause you'll end up hurting yourself or something. But I don't know, but I kinda do know, and anyways." 

He stops because his brain can't think of anything else or maybe it still is but it doesn't make any sense now. Just a bunch of letters all mixed up that they don't make any sense- just a bunch of word spaghetti on a page that other people can read just fine but it's confusing and it makes his head hurt and-

"Charlie?"

Dee sounds broken and shit, he really messed up didn't he? The buzzing starts to come back, but earlier he didn't notice that it got quieter which doesn't make any sense but-

"Did, did you really mean that?"

"I- I guess."

He did. He meant all of it but his head doesn't make sense to people the way it makes sense to him and someone once told him that the yelling and buzzing in his brain wasn't normal but that couldn't be real because-

Dee's mouth tastes like fruit. Charlie doesn't know enough about fruits to know which one it is but it's sweet which makes sense because she's Sweet Dee and she's kissing him. Her mouth is soft against his and her hand is resting on one of his and she's leaning towards him with her eyes fluttered shut and his brain is quiet even when he closes his eyes.

He loses track of time. He just sits there and kisses her, rests his hands on her waist and back as she runs hers through his hair. He wants to remember everything about this: the way she moves her lips against his, the little noises she makes and the way she presses her whole body into him, like she's falling and trusts him enough to catch her.

His head is quiet and all he can think of is Dee. 

Dee Dee Dee.

**Author's Note:**

> check me out on [tumblr](http://actualbabe.tumblr.com/)


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